WOMENS ROLE IN SOCIETY
This essay will begin by describing the three spheres that tie society together. The main
institution of society is the family or household that is broken up into thousands of units.
Secondly, it will discuss the economical institution and its ties to the family. The use of
labor power and how that affects the power struggle with the capitalist marketplace will
also be discussed. Lastly, the political institution of government will be shown along with
its relationships to the family and the families ability to create reform and change
regulation. One of the main institutions in society in the household or family. It is here that
almost all the consumption in society takes place. It is also here that all the labor power in
society originates. The make up of the family is not as cut and dries as it once was. The
nuclear family is dead and what has replaced it has put all old theories about the family to
the test. One major change has been the rise of the dual earner family. In seventy percent
of households today there is no single breadwinner. Womens position in the family has
been changed radically from that of one hundred years ago. Three important issues have
been raised about womens position in the family. One is that the development of gender
inequality within the family is a result of the changing economy. This being the extra
accumulation of property in private households. The second issue is that capitalism being
the only form of economy we are familiar with pushes for the working of every family
member to create a strong economy. Lastly, the evolution of the family dispersed from
economical development and instead becomes a more social issue. Because the position of
women in the family has been so altered from past history, projections made, even forty
years ago, are increasingly wrong. Though, even with the changing structure of the family
the economical labor power has not significantly increased. The role of housewife in the
post industrial age was just important to women as todays dual earning household. The
house wife was the counter part to the husbands role as breadwinner. It was the wife who
cleaned the husbands clothes, prepared his food and provided emotional support, without
which he could not fulfill his role as breadwinner. With the evolution of the labor market
and capitalist economy with the ever increasing consumption of the family unit the
